Shots in the Dark

The discussion about whether the returns of higher ed justifies its price tag seems to be heating up…

…to be sold, anyway. I love this Associated Press pic that ran in today’s Times:

Has Sarah Palin peaked?

NYT blog FiveThirtyEight looks at how much media interest each GOP candidate or likely candidate is receiving—and the news is not good for the Tobasca from Alaska. (Let’s see if that catches on.)

Sarah Palin’s potential candidacy, for instance, is only receiving about one-fifth as much attention as it did several months ago.

Does this matter for Palin? Well, yes and no. No, because even when she did get a lot of media attention, it never translated into popular appeal. (Arguably the opposite was the case; the more people read about and saw her, the less they liked her.) And no, because it’s still too early and there’s nothing wrong with flying under the radar for a bit.

But yes, because it is deeply painful for Palin not to be constantly in the press.

This website collects them. And yes, they are real and they are hilarious.

Particularly great is the way that almost all of them pretend to be self-deprecatory…

For the 3rd time in 3 yrs I’ve been asked to speak at Harvard, but I’ve yet to speak at my alma mater. What’s a girl gotta do @MarquetteU?

seals woke me up. the bittersweet of #yachtliiving

Wow does my poor makeup artist have her work cut out for her.

So the International Journal of Genetics and Molecular Biology asks me to submit a paper. Do they know I’m a primary school drop-out!

As I say, pretty funny.

But does the paper have the slightest clue what it’s talking about in this editorial inspired by allegations of sexual hostility at Yale?

It doesn’t sound like it.

At the moment, the department has open [sic] investigations of possible Title IX violations at several universities, including Yale, where 16 students and recent graduates have accused the university of tolerating a hostile environment toward women on campus.

…A cultural change is essential to make campuses safer places for all.

The New York Times asks for a cultural change to make campuses safer.

Stop, as they say, the presses…..

They just got pounded by the next-worst team in the National League, the Houston Astros.

And no one is going to their games, which is going to increase the financial pressure on the Wilpons, their owners.

When will they admit that they have to sell the entire team, not just a percentage of it?

…as they used to say: Check out the trailer for a new film called Terri, about the relationship between a teenage boy with weight issues and a vice principal with marital challenges. It’s funny and wry and honest.

Also, my wife and her colleagues at ATO Pictures have been working on this film for over a year now. So I’m not entirely objective.

On the other hand, I’ve seen it—twice—and it’s good. Really good.

I know that it’s going to be an enormous fight to stop the Chinese from slaughtering the remaining sharks in the oceans. In a way, that’s why I’m so dismayed when I see Americans who remain ignorant of the threat to these incredible animals. The Chinese don’t know better; we should.

A couple years ago, I was asked to dinner at a Chinese restaurant on the Upper East Side, part of a chain of five relatively expensive Chinese places. Looking online at the menu, I was depressed to find that they served shark fin soup. So I emailed the owner, who is not Chinese, and asked how he could justify that when sharks were so endangered. Soon enough, he’d taken shark fin soup off the menu at all five of his restaurants.

On a trip to Charleston a few weeks back, I visited two restaurants, F.I.G. and McCradys—both hailed as emblematic of sustainable, progressive cooking, and generally wonderful paces to eat—serving mako shark. It’s one of the most endangered animals in the world. When I emailed both, representatives assured me that the shark had been caught “by accident.” (By—and I doubt that this is an accident—the same fisherman.)

But when I put to both that they were serving the shark absolutely without context, sending the message to American diners that it is acceptable to eat shark, they had no answer.

And just last week, I saw a New York food club called GluttNY (clever, I guess) advertising an event called “Eat It Before It Eats You.” They planned to serve alligator, barracuda, and shark. Cute, right?

When I emailed the event’s organizers saying that I was astounded they were serving an endangered species as a lark, one wrote back to say that they were opposed to the finning of sharks, but this wasn’t that, and they were only serving reef shark, which isn’t endangered.

I wrote back to point out that the commercial fishing of reef sharks is against the law in the United States. I also posted something on Facebook asking my near-800 “friends” to boycott the event and email the chef in protest.

For whatever reason, my correspondent emailed me this morning to inform me that they were changing the menu.

So people can learn, which is great, and the existence of websites and email really does help to correspond with people who may not realize the impact of their actions.

I hope films like this forthcoming one, This Is Your Ocean: Sharks, help. Even if you don’t want to watch the whole thing, check out the shot in the last ten seconds. (How great would that be?) It’ll make your day.

This is Your Ocean: Sharks - Official Trailer from George Schellenger on Vimeo.

My Boston Globe magazine piece on Larry Summers’ return to campus was out yesterday.

(Sorry, so was I.)

Still, the presence of two Harvard presidents on campus is potentially awkward, particularly when one of them is known for her low-key, diplomatic style and the other is a gaffe-prone international economic powerhouse. If Summers maintains a high profile – something he’s never not done – would he highlight Faust’s weaknesses, or make his critics want to buy him a ticket back to D.C.?

Some of you have already commented on it below…